Not if you plan to rape the corpse, which this person apparently did. Sorry, that's not an explanation, that's a new joke. It was pretty good, by the way, but it's not what I'm asking for.

And the way you "play" russian roulette is as a torture method with a prisoner. That's where it comes from, and there is no established way to "play" unless you're about to tell me you're reading from the official rulebook of the International Russian Roulette Association. If you're going to try to ground this thing in reality that doesn't work because it was never grounded in reality.

Also, I'm not even saying this joke isn't funny. It made me chuckle for a second, but if you think about it for like three seconds it treats the woman as a prop on so many levels. The woman in this story has no agency whatsoever, even when she's offering sex in the setup it's just a weird incel fantasy that would never happen.

[–] QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Not if you plan to rape the corpse, which this person apparently did.

Well, sure, the other half of the joke is that the speaker is a literal psychopath, thus the Patrick Bateman. You don’t start reading a meme expecting it to be psychopathic.

Also, I’m not sure you could call that the “plan” considering there was a 50% chance the speaker would have been dead at the end of the game.

Sorry, that's not an explanation, that's a new joke.

I’m pretty sure it is. Feel free to explain why it isn’t, and I’ll respond to that,

And the way you "play" russian roulette is as a torture method with a prisoner. That's where it comes from, and there is no established way to "play"

Where are you getting this from? I have found absolutely no evidence to support this, and lots of evidence to the contrary. By all accounts, you take turns holding the revolver up to your own head of your own free will.

If you think the players take turns shooting at each other, that seems to be a particular variant called Russian poker, and it’s depiction in media is relatively uncommon in my experience.

it treats the woman as a prop on so many levels

Yes, I don’t think anyone disagrees with you here. IMO, the rule of thumb is, “Would it be equally funny if the genders were swapped?”, and IMO, the answer is “yes” in this case, because the joke doesn’t rely on sexism.

The woman in this story has no agency whatsoever

Except for agreeing to play Russian roulette. Surely both parties were aware of the odds of their demise.

even when she's offering sex in the setup it's just a weird incel fantasy that would never happen.

And now we’ve arrived at the cringiest part of the meme. It’s a pretty lame setup that indeed relies on dialogue that would never happen IRL. I guess that’s why it’s a !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world.

Edit: on second thought, I have officially spent too much time dissecting this mid-tier garbage, and unless you can accept the fact that you misunderstood the premise of Russian roulette, I won’t be continuing this conversation.

[–] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Yes, I don’t think anyone disagrees with you here. IMO, the rule of thumb is, “Would it be equally funny if the genders were swapped?”, and IMO, the answer is “yes” in this case, because the joke doesn’t rely on sexism.

This is a good rule of thumb, and I think where the joke actually lies. See, it relies on the viewer's familiarity with the Patrick Bateman image, where it's suddenly recontextualised as an image of a man having sex with a corpse. That works because the popular image only focusses on the man and the woman is so depersonalised that there is nothing to indicate whether she's even alive.

The question about whether it would work with the genders swapped depends on whether an equally popular image-of-a-woman-sexually-dominating-a-man-who-is-so-devoid-of-personhood-that-he-could-be-dead exists, and the answer is no, of course not. The man sexually dominating a woman who lacks agency is pervasive throughout our culture because our culture is deeply patriarchal. That's why this image is so common.

That cultural backdrop is the point here. That's why this joke can so easily be misongynistic without triggering people's disgust, because it's not so different from the baseline level of misogyny that we experience every day. If you had to explain this to someone without that background, you would sound like a monster if you were trying to sell it as funny.

As for the origins of the game, there's debate as to where it comes from, mostly from fictional accounts or from stories of mock executions. But yes, the popular imagination comes from Deer Hunter, where you do in fact point it at your own head. There's nothing to indicate the woman agreed to play, however, since her consent isn't part of the equation once she's dead. That was my actual point when I brought up the fact that there's no rulebook for the game.